Reclaiming Surrendered Ground!

(This picture is symbolic.  It’s the Keyhole on the trail to Longs Peak.  It’s near the top of the summit.  I look up at Longs Peak almost daily…and remember a time when I was healthy enough to reach the top.  This morning…the thought drifted into my mind that I want to get back there again.  Hmmm…”get back there again…” It means so much more than getting to the top of a 14,000 foot peak…it means reclaiming surrendered ground in so many ways.

As I share from personal experience, please hear my motive…it is to stir up what’s inside you as believers in our Lord Jesus, it’s not to get a pat on the back.  Please…I’m already receiving my reward because walking out of the prison and experiencing glimpses of what Jesus has in store for me is intoxicating…there is a drive building within me and I want more! So…consider reading this and listen to hear what your spirit is saying to you. Where have you surrendered ground? What do you plan to do about it?)

Here We Go!

This is written to my dear brothers…warriors who stand by my side in this life as we push upward…you know who you are.  I’ve been blowing your phones up over a span of time now because I’ve experienced personal victories in areas of my life I’d honestly given up hope of ever winning in.   I can’t emphasize enough the hopelessness that had come over me regarding these areas.

It’s in these moments that I stand in amazement at what has been done for me.  I have such appreciation for my Lord Jesus Christ and what he’s done for me…and I simply must climb up onto the rooftop and share.

This blog is a continuation of my previous post (Mindset) which described some significant changes taking place over this past summer.  In this post, I want to talk more about the idea of “reclaiming surrendered ground”.   There’s a directive in the bible that tells us to return to our first love (Revelation 2:4), and that could just as easily be the title of this post.

February 2003

Before I continue, I will reference a series of events that took place over 15 years ago because I find these memories drifting back into my awareness consistently in recent weeks.   I’m including a link to read specifically about these events rather than recount them here (WARFARE!).

325

This morning I hit the scale and went under 325 for the first time in possibly a decade.  As my Fitbit would say, “I crushed it!”  The victories I am beginning to experience in the past few months have rekindled a warrior-spirit within the depth of my being that feels incredible.  As a husband, a father, a brother, and a coach, I find myself wanting to challenge and encourage those close to me to push forward against those obstacles, those issues, those cell doors of resignation which have for so long stolen the life that has been promised by Jesus in John 10:10.

Operating From A Position Of Strength – NOT Weakness!

As a player and a coach, there were points in a game where you could feel the momentum had brought your opponent to the breaking point.  It’s in those moments I would say, “step on the jugular.”  A graphic example for those who have never experienced intense competition, but the fact is, when you have your opponent on the ropes, that is not the time to let up…it’s the time to deliver the knockout blow.

We have to recognize the facts about our circumstances.  What was done for us at Calvary by Christ has put all followers in a position of strength over our opponent.  Christ won the battle and he stripped Satan of his keys (Revelation 1:18).  He has given that authority to us as His followers (Luke 9:1-6).  The enemy has one weapon in his arsenal…lies.  As Bill Johnson said in his teaching “The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind”, Satan talks and talks and talks until he can get someone to agree with his lies.

He lies about what God thinks of you; he lies about God’s thoughts about your circumstances; he lies about your identity; he lies about your inability to rise up and walk in victory; he lies about the prison doors being locked in your life…he lies about everything!  His power comes when we believe the lies and hand over our God-given authority to him and walk into the prison cell.  Agreement with Satan leads to jurisdiction he has a right to operate in within our lives.

Repentance is Warfare!

Repentance has been given a bad wrap.  Repentance is seen by so many as this place where we feel so badly about who we are…where we grovel about how pathetic we are and how sorry we are for the losers we are…okay, perhaps a bit dramatized.  Don’t get me wrong here, it is a place where we humble ourselves before the Lord and ask forgiveness for our choices and actions…but it’s also a place of warfare.

When we make the decision to acknowledge our rebellion and disobedience to God, we bow our knee before the Lord and come into genuine repentance for our thoughts and actions.  In these moments of surrender, we are bringing areas to God that Satan once had jurisdiction to occupy…we are reclaiming surrender ground…we are at war!

We must seriously examine those areas within our life where we’ve been unwilling to turn and walk 180 degrees in a different direction.  Until we settle it in our heart that we are done with that agreement, that sin-behavior, that thinking pattern…we will continue to ride the rollercoaster of freedom/relapse/bondage.

To My Brothers

We are followers of Christ, we are Soldiers in the army of the Living God…we are free from the bondage of slavery to those sinful ways of thinking…those places of compromise we’ve walked in for so many years.  There is a divine purpose to the days we walk this planet.  As Bill Johnson said, we are a “gateway people” because the House of God is also the “gate of Heaven” operating between two realms (Genesis 28).  We have been given the directive to live from Heaven to earth instead of live from earth to Heaven…”Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”   It’s not a suggestion…because of what Christ did for us, it is our directive.

I encourage you as I encourage myself right now…as the Goliath’s in your life come out onto the battlefield to spout off their lies about our circumstances…we can be like the masses who put on our armor…run to the battlefield shouting our war cries only to stand paralyzed in fear (1 Samuel 17), or we can be like the one who chose to believe that the God who delivered him from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will also deliver us from the hand of this uncircumcised Philistine (1 Sam 17:37).  We can step out from the masses and approach our Goliaths with conviction that God goes before us in battle; we can trust Him and walk out in our God-issued armor and the little stones He has chosen to bring victory.

Revisiting “Mindset”

We certainly need to address those areas of compromise in our lives…areas previously withheld from the Lordship of Jesus.  There is no getting around the fact that as we resist the Lordship of Jesus, we give jurisdiction to the one who seeks to “kill, steal, and destroy” in our lives.

However, as we rise up in the courage to actually pray dangerous prayers like Psalm 139:23-24 over our lives…as we open the door and invite the Holy Spirit into previously non-negotiable areas…demonstrating through action and not simply word that God truly is good, we make the decision to allow ourselves to be sanctified…to be set apart.

With such a mindset of determination, let us once and for all walk out of the prison cells we have become so accustomed to and never return.  Let us walk into the freedom Christ came to offer us, and experience what this life was meant to be.

It is to the Father’s glory that we bear much fruit in this life…so as the author of Hebrews wrote, “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.  And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:1-2).